


We Burn White Hot

by addie_cakes



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: But mostly fluff, CiONTU, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Reunion Fic, continue with wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 01:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14367504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addie_cakes/pseuds/addie_cakes
Summary: It was the feeling of two bodies crashing together in a desperate embrace, two entities that had been separated for far too long, two figures who stared at each other for a millisecond too short or too long—Time was folding into itself, and it suddenly didn’t matter.(Or, Javier shows up for Yuzuru's Continue with Wings show)





	We Burn White Hot

It was the feeling of two bodies crashing together in a desperate embrace, two entities that had been separated for far too long, two figures who stared at each other for a millisecond too short or too long—  
  
Time was folding into itself, and it suddenly didn’t matter.  
  
A strong hand flew up to cup a sharp jaw, the movement too fast and a little rough, but the touch was completely needed.  
  
It was all too much at once, and yet it wasn’t enough. They were so different and both too intense, but a head leaned into the touch, and it started to make sense.  
  
Javier was smiling, breathlessly, not daring to move his hand, not when Yuzuru was practically using it as an anchor. The younger man’s eyes were closed in nervous, chaotic contentment, and he practically choked out a laugh.  
  
“You told me to come; I thought the surprise was for the fans,” Javier whispered, the sound harsh against his ears. It cut into the perfect silence of simply being and being needed by Yuzuru. It cut into the sound of Yuzuru’s breath and his joy and his laughter and every other noise he could think to make.  
  
“You said you’d come, but—“ Yuzuru paused to catch his breath; he always needed to catch his breath but never actually stopped to do so. “—but too much—we keep changing—“ he managed.  
  
And Javier understood. It started with the Olympics, with his saying that he was going to retire. But he wouldn’t actually retire. He just couldn’t put his body through another Olympics. But a life without skating was one that he could not yet imagine, and he had adjusted himself for a smaller number of competitions.  
  
But perhaps, deep down, Yuzuru had felt abandoned. The young man already seemed to believe that his own body wanted to abandon him, wanted to leave him stranded on an abyss of ice while it really only needed time to heal (time Yuzuru rarely allowed it). Maybe Javier’s informal announcement, rash as it had been, had scared Yuzuru.  
  
And oh—oh, he never wanted to do that.  
  
“I know,” Javier insisted, and he pushed against Yuzuru’s chin so that the other man was forced to look up. They needed this again, this closeness, this reunion.  
  
It was a catharsis, a release of emotions that neither had even realized they had been holding in. For Yuzuru, his emotions came in waves and tears and torrents, and Javier worried that they may not stop. But for Javier, he could only feel an uncomfortable clench in his chest as he watched his training partner practically fall apart in front of him.  
  
This was supposed to be a happy occasion, and yet—and yet it was so, so heartbreaking.  
  
“This is your moment,” the older man muttered, nodding for Yuzuru. “You get to enjoy this; you’ve earned it.” The accolades, the fans, the scores, the awards—it was all Yuzuru, and it was dedication and skill and blood (actual flowing blood) and nights and days spent crying and panicking and losing himself in his music. Now, he could celebrate those achievements, and Javier reminded himself to be thankful that Yuzuru thought so highly of him to be a part of this show.  
  
Yuzuru’s eyes flicked upward. “Yours, too. My achievements, I owe to you.” He said this with such sincerity, such conviction, that Javier almost believed him.  
  
“You don’t. We push each other, and that’s—“  
  
“I need you to be me,” the other man suddenly said, voice raising slightly. It felt unnatural, such a sound coming from Yuzuru. He was passionate, yes, and almost always too emotional, but he was rarely angry, unless the anger was directed at himself. But Yuzuru seemed to be glaring at Javier nonetheless and shook his head. “I can’t do this without you.”  
  
A repeat. Yuzuru Hanyu was good at repeats. GPFs, Worlds, Nationals, the Olympics—of course he could repeat at the Olympics—these words...Yuzuru repeated them, and the only difference was that Shoma Uno was not sandwiched between them, eyeing them confusedly.  
  
Javier took a moment to compose himself. If he spoke now, without being so sure what it was that he wanted to say, he feared that he would say the wrong thing or not he able to speak at all. “You have to,” he settled. “Look at you, all that you’ve done. You were you before, and you will be you now.” He wasn’t sure if Yuzuru could understand everything he meant, but the look on the younger man’s face spoke enough.  
  
Slackening his grip, Yuzuru smiled bitterly. “I needed you here,” he mumbled, voice distinctly fragile. But there was nothing fragile about Yuzuru. Everything about him seemed as much; he was thin and too thin-looking, and his lungs never seemed to fill with enough air, and his legs never wanted to stay on the ice, and he cried at the drop of the hat—but—  
  
But Yuzuru only fell because he first jumped. And he jumped higher and faster than everyone else. He took the risks, and sometimes his feet slipped out from under him. And sometimes he set world records.  
  
Why, then, was this genius, this unstoppable force and a hurricane of talent, stopping everything to reaffirm Javier’s impact? The older man watched Yuzuru carefully, and he tried to determine how he had settled himself so wholly into a myth’s life.  
  
“I am who I am because I wanted to be you,” Yuzuru admitted, reaching up to cup the back of Javier’s neck, just like Javier would do to him. “I know...we are not the same, but—but they should know how I got here, and you are the reason.”  
  
“...and you are the reason I came here,” Javier told him calmly. “I would not keep my schedule free and keep a secret for so long for anybody. You know I love to talk.”  
  
Yuzuru laughed wetly, and Javier stopped to think that he hadn’t even noticed Yuzuru start crying.  
  
“But I won’t take credit for what you have done.”  
  
Nodding, Yuzuru sniffed. “I missed you.”  
  
“But I was—“ He wasn’t there, not really. Not mentally, all the time, and now he could be, in front of everyone. When Yuzuru had approached him, Javier was both surprised and not at all.  
  
Not surprised, because he knew that Yuzuru loved to cite his friend as inspiration. And they had such a public history of a rivalry and a friendship and a beautiful competitiveness that pushed each other to be their bests.  
  
But so surprised, because he didn’t think that Yuzuru would actually ask. Of course he agreed.  
  
They hadn’t let go of each other, and Javier suspected that he wouldn’t for as long as he could help it. If he had missed anything in the last few weeks, it was this contact, this needing, this wanting to be close enough to Yuzuru to feel every shaking wrack that ran through the younger man.  
  
And here he was, and he had no plans of going anywhere else. Maybe he wouldn’t skate alongside Yuzuru, but he wouldn’t leave again, either. And if he could pretend to be such a significant force in Yuzuru’s life, he could pretend that he knew what was going to come next.  
  
He didn’t. But wasn’t Yuzuru always worth it? Hadn’t Brian taken Yuzuru on as a student when he didn’t know if the young man would meet all the expectations or burn out like a skinny match in a storm?  
  
But wasn’t he worth it?  
  
Yuzuru had been called the “ice prince,” the “king of skating,” but he was all fire and too hot and scalding and painful, and Javier couldn’t let go. He could blister and burn and burn white hot but never let go, and it would all be worth it.  
  
He would let this man, needy and dramatic and whiny and perfect and flawed as he was, pull him down into the deepest depths of water, if he would promise to hold onto Javier’s hand the whole time. He would walk through fire for Yuzuru Hanyu, if it only meant that their reunion would be so sweet and bittersweet like this, and he would throw himself into the air at full speed—he wouldn’t look down, he would just soar for the hope that Yuzuru would eventually ground him.  
  
Yuzuru fell against him as if exhausted. He was still smiling, eyes closed, and still crying. “Thank you for coming,” he finally said.  
  
Oh, yes.  
  
Javier would continue, with or without wings.  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr (figure-skating-prompts.tumblr.com --come check me out and send me a prompt!).


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